Opposition claimed constitutional change would let the president run again

by Mexico News Daily

President López Obrador vowed today to sign a declaration that he will not seek another term in office after opposition lawmakers said that a constitutional change allowing for a referendum to cut short the six-year presidential term opened the door to his re-election.

The president said at his morning press conference that he will present a signed commitment on Monday declaring that he will not stand for re-election in 2024.

“I give my word and what I consider most important in my life is honesty, but in any case, I’m going to make a public commitment,” López Obrador said.

The Chamber of Deputies yesterday approved a constitutional amendment that would allow voters to have their say on a president’s performance three years after taking office.

The vote would be held on the same date as mid-term congressional elections. López Obrador says that if citizens choose to revoke his mandate, he will resign.

Supported by lawmakers from the ruling Morena party and its coalition partners, the reform received the required support of two-thirds of members in the lower house. The reform will now be passed to the Senate for debate and another vote.

“It’s a trick,” said National Action Party (PAN) Deputy Marcos Aguilar Vega of the midterm vote.
“We must switch on all the warning signs because the examples are clear: revocation of mandate was proposed in Venezuela and that opened the door to the ambition of Hugo Chávez to perpetuate his power.”

PAN Deputy Xavier Azuara said “these changes will allow the executive [branch of government] an intense political campaign in a shameless way in 2021 just when this chamber and 13 governorships are renewed.” It’s a “path to re-election,” he added.

On Twitter, PAN national president Marko Cortés wrote: “Today Morena and the Mexican government begin their quest to perpetuate themselves in power. The National Action Party categorically rejects the terms in which the popular consultation and revocation of mandate proposals were presented . . .”
Politicians from other opposition parties also voted against and criticized the approval of the constitutional reform.

“The next step is re-election,” said Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Deputy María Alemán Muñoz Castillo, warning that Mexico could head down a path similar to that taken in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Citizens’ Movement lawmaker Alan Falomir charged that the reform is a political ploy designed to not only perpetuate López Obrador’s power but also to ensure that his Morena party is successful in the 2021 midterm elections.

“They need daddy AMLO” to campaign for the continuation of his rule in order to be swept to power by the tide of the president’s popularity, he contended.

López Obrador today acknowledged the criticism before reasserting his commitment to serve just one term.

“I heard the statements made by PAN lawmakers, saying that it [the revocation of mandate vote] is a rehearsal for re-election,” the president said before outlining details of what he intends to say in his public declaration.

“I will say that I am a supporter of democracy, that I agree with the [revolutionary and former president Francisco Madero’s] maxim of ‘effective suffrage, no re-election,’ that I am a maderista [adherent of Madero], that I’m not overambitious.”

Three and a half months after he was sworn in as president, López Obrador continues to enjoy strong public support, according to recent opinion polls.

A poll published earlier this month by the newspaper El Financiero showed that 78 percent of respondents approved of the president’s performance, while another published by El Universal this week to coincide with the completion of the government’s first 100 days in office gave an almost identical result.
Considering the survey results, there appears to be little chance that Mexicans would choose to remove López Obrador from the top job in a referendum on his rule.

In other business, lower house lawmakers also passed constitutional amendments that make it easier for the government to hold public consultations such as those held on the Mexico City airport project and a thermal power plant in Morelos.

Source: El Financiero (sp), El Universal (sp), Noticieros Televisa (sp), Reuters(en).

Due to lack of confidence, indigenous communities say no to national guard
They don’t expect complicity between federal security forces and criminal groups to change

Representatives of community police forces that operate in 38 Guerrero municipalities and one in Puebla have spoken out against the entry of the national guard into their territory.

“The people of our communities don’t believe in a simple change of name or uniform of the police.

There is no confidence that the national guard will work in favor of indigenous peoples and their communities,” said Sabrás Aburto, a spokesman for CRAC, an umbrella group of community police forces.

About 12,000 community police, or self-defense force members, operate in the Costa Chica, Tierra Caliente, Sierra, North and Central regions of the state.

Crime rates are way up as Los Viagras battle with the Jalisco New Generation cartel

by Mexico News Daily

Six years after citizens staged an uprising against Los Caballeros Templarios cartel and other criminal groups in the Tierra Caliente of Michoacán, violent crime in the region and state is even worse.

Figures for intentional homicides, firearms injuries, kidnappings, threats and drug dealing in Michoacán were all significantly higher last year than in 2013.

Confrontations between criminal gangs are frequent and the spiraling crime rates – there were 1,060 homicides last year compared to 475 in 2013 – have left many people running scared.

Among those terrorized are widows of self-defense force members who lost their lives in Tierra Caliente clashes with cartel members.

Some of the narcos have returned to the towns as members of different criminal gangs and with their husbands’ executioners at close quarters, the women – and other residents – are terrified.

“We’re worse off than before,” said Hipólito Mora, founder of the self-defense force in La Ruana, where citizens took up arms on Feb. 24, 2013, the first town in the region to to so.

“[There are] a lot of homicides, kidnappings, robberies and extortion. In almost all of Michoacán, there is a serious insecurity problem. Unfortunately, not everyone dares to speak out,” he said.

José Juan Ibarra Ramírez, secretary of the government of Buenavista, the municipality where La Ruana is located, agrees that the security situation has worsened.

“One cannot make decisions like before, we can’t say with certainty that we will go to [the neighboring municipality of] Apatzingán at 8 at night because we’re afraid, our whole community is frightened.
Confrontations in the surrounding areas haven’t stopped and there have been some police deaths … The night is dangerous…” he said.

An army colonel was also killed in Buenavista last month, the first high-ranking military fatality since the López Obrador-led federal government took office on Dec. 1.

According to Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles, a turf war between two of Mexico’s most violent criminal organizations is responsible for much of the bloodshed in the Tierra Caliente region and other parts of the state.

“Los Viagras have their headquarters, let’s say their operational base, in the municipality of Buenavista … In Tepalcatepec [southwest of Buenavista], the Jalisco [New Generation] Cartel has a beachhead and they want to control the trafficking [of drugs], the route…”

Their goal, the governor said, is to break up the local cell of Los Viagras. “That’s the issue.”

An escalation in the violence in recent weeks has been blamed on a gang of sicarios, or hitmen, known as Los Blancos de Troya, who presumably work for the Jalisco cartel. They have been confronting groups linked to the Viagras after announcing their intentions in early February to conduct operations in Buenavista.

As in the days when Los Caballeros Templarios were in control, organized crime is once again having its say in who should govern.

In July last year, the mayor-elect of Buenavista, Morena party member Eliseo Delgado Sánchez, was shot and killed. A woman elected as municipal trustee who was proposed to take his place decided instead to flee Michoacán after receiving threats from a criminal group.

“I [want to] make my resignation public, I [want to] make it public that politics doesn’t interest me … I’m leaving the country, I will never again participate in political life ….” Elvia del Socorro Ortega said in a video posted to Facebook in September.

The next day, she posted another video from Tijuana, reiterating that she had given up political life for good.

Buenavista’s Ramírez said that more and more women are now being affected by the violence plaguing Michoacán’s Tierra Caliente.

“Two months ago, violence spread a bit more to women, there were some confrontations and some very young women died,” he said, explaining that some of them were likely married to or in relationships with gang members.

A total of 144 women were murdered in Michoacán last year and a further seven lost their lives to violence in January.

There were almost 1,300 missing people in the state as of last April, of whom almost 300 disappeared in the Tierra Caliente region.

Hipólito Mora said that five young men including his nephew were abducted in La Ruana last month.

“…They weren’t involved in anything, not with one cartel or the other. Their only sin is that they were drug addicts … but they weren’t halcones [hawks or lookouts for drug gangs]. They were nobodies but they were taken … he said.

Source: Milenio (sp), Infobae (sp).

Crude oil processing, fuel production showing increases

by Mexico News Daily

Mexico’s six petroleum refineries are showing new signs of life: fuel production and crude processing capacity are up and unscheduled stoppages have been reduced to zero.

State oil sector reports seen by the newspaper El Universal show that production of regular and premium gasoline in the third week of February was 86.7 percent higher than in the first week of January.

Diesel and aviation fuel production also increased, by 98.3 percent and 68.7 percent respectively in the same period.

The month-over-month figures are not quite as impressive but positive nonetheless.

Daily gasoline production this month has averaged 192,000 barrels per day (bpd) compared to 128,000 bpd last month – a 50 percent increase – and 153,000 bpd in December. Diesel production was up 32 percent to 131,000 bpd in February compared to 99,000 bpd last month.

While the signs are promising, the National Refining System (SNR) is still a long way from getting back to production levels seen a decade ago when they reached their highest point in 29 years.

During the last two weeks of this month, automotive fuel production has averaged 213,000 bpd – just 42.3 percent of the average daily production of 504,100 bpd in January 2009.

With regard to crude oil processing, the six oil refineries achieved an average capacity of 484,000 bpd during January but this month, the figure has increased by 15.7 percent to 560,000 bpd.

Looking at figures for the first week of last month and the third week of February, the increase is even more impressive.

Crude processing has increased from 309,500 bpd to 664,00 bpd in the period, a 114 percent surge. However, the figure represents less than 40 percent of the refineries’ combined processing capacity if they were operating at an optimal level.

Another good result for the oil sector is that there hasn’t been a single work stoppage at refineries this month compared to 40 in January and 48 in December.

According to the oil sector reports, Mexico’s oil production and processing problems were, as of the end of the third quarter last year, primarily linked to “operational problems” at the refineries in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas, and Minatitlán, Veracruz.

At the time both facilities were only operating at a minimal capacity.

To improve production and processing capacity across the SNR, an oil sector report said, it was “essential to continue general maintenance and preventative programs” at all refineries.
Petroleum production has been declining in Mexico for years.

Earlier this month, President López Obrador announced a 107-billion-peso (US $5.5-billion) rescue plan for Pemex aimed at reducing the state oil company’s financial burden and strengthening its capacity to invest in exploration and production.

He has pledged to reduce Mexico’s dependency on petroleum imports and part of his rescue plan for the sector includes the construction of a new refinery in Tabasco.

But while the president is optimistic, financial institutions rejected the government’s plan, describing it as insufficient and disappointing, while Fitch Ratings warned that it doesn’t insulate the state oil company against future cuts to its credit rating, which it currently rates at just one notch above junk.

Source: El Universal (sp).

In other news, in Nicaragua

Nicaragua talks on crisis begin, dozens of prisoners freed

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Representatives of President Daniel Ortega and the opposition sat down face-to-face in a restart of long-stalled talks on resolving Nicaragua’s political crisis Wednesday, shortly after authorities released dozens of people arrested in last year’s crackdown on anti-government protests.

The meeting at a business institute south of the capital, Managua, was held behind closed doors and journalists were not allowed access.

The first day had been expected to be used to set the agenda and format for talks, and at its end the sides released a statement saying they agreed to nine of the 12 points on a preliminary road map and would meet again Thursday. The statement read by Apostolic Nuncio Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag did not provide details about what the points were.

Ortega did not take part in the talks but was represented by his foreign minister, a magistrate, several lawmakers and a student leader. The opposition delegation included several prominent business leaders, a noted academic, a politician and a university student. Sommertag, the Vatican’s ambassador to Nicaragua, and Managua’s cardinal were present as observers.

Last year’s protests demanding Ortega leave office and allow early elections prompted a deadly crackdown by security forces and armed, pro-government civilian groups. At least 325 people were killed, 2,000 wounded, hundreds imprisoned and more than 50,000 fled into exile.

One of the opposition’s primary demands has been the release of the estimated 770-plus people considered political prisoners jailed for participating in demonstrations.

Hours before talks began Wednesday, several vans carrying people in inmates’ uniforms left the Modelo prison in the capital escorted by heavily armed police in trucks.

Source: Associated Press.

Looting began with Salinas, the president charged, calling him ‘the father of modern inequality’

by Mexico News Daily

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador delivered a scathing attack on five past presidents yesterday and Wednesday, accusing them of “pillage” during the “neoliberal period” of the past 30 years.

He also said that the Mexican people could be asked in a public consultation if they want Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto to be put on trial for their alleged crimes.

Speaking at his morning press conference yesterday, López Obrador said that the corruption and looting started during the 1988-1994 government led by Salinas, who he dubbed “the father of modern inequality.”
“We’re cleaning the government of corruption because the entire neoliberal period was characterized by pillage, not just the previous administration. This started in the government of Salinas,” he said.

“To speak clearly, the problems we are suffering from now originated then – when the assets of the people, of the nation, were handed over. When the policy of privatization was started is when inequalities in Mexico deepened and I can prove it, with information from the World Bank, I have the proof,” López Obrador said.

The president said that at the start of Salinas’ administration, only one Mexican appeared on Forbes’ billionaires list but at the end of his six-year term “24 appeared on the list of the world’s richest men.”
The 24 billionaires shared wealth of US $48 billion, López Obrador said, claiming “that was the size of the transfer of resources, the delivery of national assets to private citizens.”

Zedillo, who continued the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party between 1994 and 2000, perpetuated Salinas’ privatization push by selling off Mexico’s state-owned railway company and systems, the president said.

Zedillo also misused Fobaproa – a contingencies fund –turning debt owed by banks into public debt and costing the country a billion pesos in interest payments, López Obrador charged.

The leftist then turned his attention to Fox, who governed Mexico for the National Action Party (PAN) between 2000 and 2006, saying that the “preponderance of corruption and waste” during his presidency was “notorious.”

López Obrador also took aim at the ex-president for awarding favorable mining concessions and on Wednesday accused him of masterminding fraud in the 2006 presidential election that he lost narrowly to Calderón.

“We want to try Fox for being a traitor of democracy. Because after he reached [the presidency] through a movement to establish democracy, he headed an electoral fraud operation to impose Felipe Calderón,” he said.

Once in power, Calderón “acted with indolent irresponsibility,” López Obrador charged, because he started the so-called war on drugs by deploying the military to combat cartels without first carrying out a proper analysis of the security situation.

“He stirred up the hornet’s nest,” the president remarked, explaining that Calderón’s strategy unleashed a wave of violence and disappearances.

Peña Nieto “did the same,” López Obrador continued, referring to the previous government’s perpetuation of the militarized crime fighting strategy.

He added: “There was corruption with Peña but it came from before, that’s why a cleansing is taking place, it’s going to take time, not a lot but there are people [in positions] above who are not going to be in our government.”

The president defended his attack by saying that “I have to provide the background because sometimes there is amnesia and the conservatives tend to be very biased.”

Past governments left “a garbage dump, a mess,” López Obrador declared.

On Wednesday, the president explained that he has asked Congress to make changes to Article 35 of the constitution in order to make public consultations legally valid after which “the people will decide” if the five past presidents should be pursued legally for their alleged wrongdoings.

As he has said before, López Obrador indicated that his personal preference was to let bygones be bygones but stressed that the people will have the “final word” on the matter.

In his typical outspoken and colorful fashion, Vicente Fox fired back at López Obrador, declaring on Twitter that he too will face legal judgement for his actions.

“You’re also going on trial,” Fox wrote, listing a range of crimes López Obrador could be tried for including the deaths of 175 people who were “burned alive,” ruining Pemex and environmental damage resulting from his proposals to build the Maya Train on the Yucatán peninsula and a new oil refinery on the Tabasco coast.

Calderón also took to Twitter to respond to López Obrador.

“Accusing without proof violates the constitution because it breaks the presumption of innocence . . . Doing it from the power of the presidency and without even mentioning a specific crime is abusive, dishonest and immoral,” he wrote.

López Obrador has also accused the former PAN president of being complicit with fuel theft and corruption because in 2016 he accepted a position on the board of an energy company that was awarded contracts during his presidency.
The Morena party leader has made combating corruption the raison d’etre of his government and vowed not to take a backward step in his crusade against it.

At a January press conference, the president said that his predecessors were either accomplices to corruption or they turned a blind eye — “there’s no way [they] didn’t know.”

“. . . All the juicy business done in the country, deals of corruption, were greenlighted by the president.”

Source: Milenio (sp), Sin Embargo (sp).